Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (12 page)

Freddie smiled and waited for Felicity’s response. His positive affirmation of William both as a friend and colleague now left Felicity with no option.

“He could cause us a problem. By ‘us’ Uncle Freddie, I mean the family, the directors and shareholders, any of us who are involved directly or indirectly in the family business. That Uncle Freddie includes you, indirectly, but you too.”

Felicity sipped her coffee for a moment to give her words time to sink in.

“Many years ago, we employed a young man, a brilliant scientist. His ability to think outside of the box enabled him to arrive at solutions to problems that no one had even realised were problems He was years, even decades ahead of his contemporaries. Science at that level generates solutions that can be applied by other less talented souls in directions no one would have imagined.”

“Except my father.”

“Yes, except your father. His ability to look at, for instance, a scientific process to produce ethanol and see it as a way to solve the oil crisis that no one else was even aware of yet, was legendary and has made us all very rich. Hasn’t it uncle Freddie? Now the brilliant young man imagines his research is pure and unsullied by commerce as it was when he was an academic. He sees that his solutions to the problems he has been working on could be used for the greater good of poorer nations. He has a brother who is a successful businessman. The brother realises the potential of his sibling’s discoveries as a tool for humanitarian good and recognises some of their commercial applications. He urges him to patent his ideas to protect them from plagiarism and to ensure he is the beneficiary of his hard work and talent. As I’m sure you are aware, if a member of one’s staff carries out research, the results of that research belong to that company. When our employee attempted to patent his work, he found that patent’s had already been filed. This would have been the end of it as he understood that the work he had done while employed by us belonged to us. As you know, Grandfather Charles was a relentless businessman who would not let anything stop him in his quest to make his company as successful as possible. This desire for success could cause him to be a little less ethical than was normal.”

              Freddie made a peculiar deep strangled noise that seemed to emanate from deep inside him. His colour changed from its normal shade of off white to puce and he gasped like a fish out of water, unable to catch his breath. Panicking, Felicity hit him as hard as she could on his back until he had regained sufficient control to grasp her arm to stop her.

Still gasping, he said,

“’A little less ethical than was normal?’” the incredulity in his voice made her wince.

“He was the single most unethical man I have ever had the misfortune of being acquainted with and related to. To my enduring shame, I have, for many years, taken the family shilling. As you have pointed out, it has enabled my family and I to enjoy a lifestyle that my chosen career could not offer. I know that this largesse was only bestowed upon me because, if I were guilty by association, I would remain silent should the authorities ever come knocking. Throughout my entire life, or at least the portion of my life when I understood that my family where miserable thieves and thugs dressed in the finery of business people, I have chosen to ignore everything that they do and distance myself from it as completely as possible. So please Felicity don’t treat me like an imbecile. I know what you are like, all of you and, by association, what I am like as well.”

Felicity sat on the chesterfield sofa, stunned. Her Uncle’s analysis of his situation was more astute and accurate than she had expected.

“May I finish?” She took his silence as agreement.

“As I said this would have been the end of it. However our young scientist had ignored his brother and wasn’t trying to file patents for the work he had done while employed by us but from his academic career where we had discovered him. Grandfather had all of his previous academic research work copied, analysed by other research scientists and then filed patents on the discoveries they made. When he discovered that we had already filed patents, he accused grandfather of theft of his ideas. He was told that he wasn’t the only scientific employee we had and to accept he had been beaten to it.”

“I assume that he didn’t respond well to being told he had been beaten?” Freddie surmised.

              Felicity paused before replying. The next part of her story was going to be difficult to put a positive spin on, even for her. So why bother?

“No, not very well at all. We found out that he had planned to speak to his brother and to publish his findings in the scientific press. Either of these happening would have been disastrous. Then he had a massive heart attack and died.”

“He had a massive heart attack and died? How did you achieve that amazing piece of coincidence?”

“I don’t know.”

Freddie looked for clarification of what had happened and how.

“You’re admitting he was killed? You just don’t know how it was done?”

“His death appeared to be from natural causes, but wasn’t. He was killed. Problem solved. His brother wanted a post-mortem examination to prove his brother died from natural causes. Impossible. He had been cremated within a few hours of his death, a tragic error on the part of the undertaker I believe. To cut, what has already been a very long story short, his brother Ernest Sanderson became a detective. Over the years since his brother’s death he has been a small but constant source of irritation. He has now passed away.” Standing, she walked over to the window that looked out toward the cathedral. She came out of her private reverie and walked back to her seat opposite her uncle.

“Moving forward we come to Ernest Sanderson’s will which had only two beneficiaries. One was to his son Ben, some cash and a house. There is also a trust fund, which will mature when he is thirty. Ben is going to be a very wealthy young man. The other bequest was to William Bacchus, why we don't know. Yet.”

***

              “Annabel? It’s William.” There was silence at the other end of the mobile phone while Annabel tried to work out who William was. She recovered, remembering him from this morning.

“With Wooster the Labrador? Am I late? We did say seven this evening didn’t we?” The questions all came out in a hurried jumble, merging into one.

“Yes, yes, sorry to call you, but I have caused a situation that I’m not sure how to resolve. Do you know Ben, from the bookshop?”

“Yes, we have a shared passion for crime novels. Why?”

“Are you very busy at the moment? If not, could you meet me at the bookshop? I’ll explain when you get here, if that’s okay?”

Laughing, Annabel agreed to meet him in ten minutes at the shop saying,

“This is going to cost you a large mocha and a chocolate brioche”

William ordered another coffee for himself as well as Annabel’s mocha and brioche.

              While he waited for Annabel to arrive, he replayed the conversation with Ben, wincing at his heavy-handed approach. All he had achieved was to alienate the one person he had been charged with looking after. The shock of discovering he had a brother was subsiding. Ben, he thought, must be experiencing similar feelings to his own. Why, he wondered, had Ernest not warned him he had a brother? He’d not worried about the shock William had experienced discovering his father wasn’t who he had thought it was. An extra brother wouldn’t have caused much additional stress. Now he needed to know what to do. Should he give him some space, let Ben have some thinking time? Search for him? Looking around the shop, he spotted the waitress who he had spoken to earlier.

“Excuse me, er?”

“Debbie”

“Debbie, thank you. I’m William. Debbie I need some advice. You seem to be friends with Ben,” He paused not sure what to say next. How do you tell a random stranger that you have upset their friend and he has disappeared into the distance?

“I have given Ben some news that has upset him and he’s left, walked out, up the street.” William pointed up Cheap Street, indicating the direction he had gone.

“Has this happened before?”

Nodding, she replied,

“Don’t worry, he’ll sometimes just disappear. He’s only gone for an hour or so. It has been as long as a couple of days and as little as ten minutes.” She wasn’t fazed by Ben’s behaviour or concerned that William had inadvertently upset him.

“He’s been cosseted from an early age because of his leg. He can sometimes come across as a bit weird. If you get to know him, you’ll realise he’s lovely. Weird, but lovely.”

Debbie returned to the table she had been clearing leaving William with his thoughts.

“Mocha and Brioche, fantastic. Crap for the figure but I love them.” Annabel sat down opposite William, took a sip of her coffee and sighed.

“How are you? You sounded worried, now you look relieved.”

Annabel smiled at William and started to eat her Brioche and sip her large Mocha.

“I seem to, no, well maybe, appear to have been a little precipitous,” he stammered. Taking a deep breath, he started again.

“I called you because I upset Ben and he upped and left. Having spoken to Debbie, it seems he does that sometimes and he will come back of his own accord when he wants to. Sorry.”

Smiling again, Annabel asked,

“What did you say or do to upset him? Not that I mind, I’m finished for the day and having a handsome stranger treat me to mocha and brioche is far better than weeding my vegetable patch.”

William blushed and said,

“I told Ben, that I had inherited this shop and that his father was also my father, different mothers.  I only found out that Ernest was my father yesterday and that Ben was my brother about an hour ago. I was heavy handed, when I should have been gentle.”

“That’s quite bombshell. I know Ben quite well and he can be a bit dramatic. As to what I would have advised, exactly what Debbie told you to do. Leave him be and he will sort it out.  Now dinner. What do you and the handsome man at your feet like, pizza or pizza?”

“She’s good, isn’t she? Confident, good sense of humour, relaxed. She could really do him a lot of good. Could you do your spiritual ghost stuff on her, while I contact William?”

Ernest looked at Juanita. He knew the answer would be no.

“Very good, very funny. I think now would be a good time to practice on William, let him get used to you. I’ve often found the best way to gain their trust is a demonstration. Tell them something they know.”

His voice was tinged with disbelief when he interrupted her to say,

“Hi I’m Ernest, your friendly ghost. I’m now going to tell you a series of facts that you are already aware of so that I can gain your trust. As the depth of my knowledge now astounds you, you will..
.
”

Juanita glared at Ernest with such ferocity it caused him to stumble mid sentence.

“I have a backlog of cases in waiting areas scattered around the four corners of limbo whom I cannot help until we have completed this ludicrous, double assignment. I am a talented guide with many hundreds of year’s of experience who is not accustomed to being ridiculed by an inexperienced limboista.” Her Spanish accent crackled as she added her own Andalucian twist to the word for a person trapped in limbo,

“It would help me if you could listen, letting me finish before you blunder in with your famous, funny English wit and amuse us all with your ironic interpretation.”

Ernest had the decency to look embarrassed by his attempts at humour. Shame wasn’t an emotion he experienced very often.

“Sorry, the inner school boy got out. Won’t happen again. You were saying; gain their trust by demonstrating you know something that only they should know. In this case what did you have in mind?”

Juanita was still smarting from his earlier attempt at humour and responded with an irritated snap in her voice.

“Think for pities sake, think. What have we just been watching? William meeting your other son Ben. No one else was in earshot, so if you introduce yourself and offer a few salient facts it should help to engender some trust between you.”

Calming down, she continued,

“The first time is always unsettling. You’ll be fine, straight in; introduce yourself, gain trust and out again, simple. Let’s go.”

              They entered Williams borrowed home in Sherborne. Juanita floated upstairs to check whether William was in one of the bedrooms while Ernest eased himself through the sitting room wall, through a print of a Picasso and into the sitting room. He could hear the sound of a kettle boiling and whistling coming from the room next door that he took to be the kitchen. A laptop was open on the dining room table along with an empty wine glass and a small bottle of Bells whisky.

              Everything in moderation he thought. William’s Labrador had wandered into the room heading towards the sofa when the hackles on the back of its neck stood upright and it turned in a complete circle examining the room. As soon as it was looking in Ernest’s direction, it went berserk. Frantic barking and snarling accompanied by wild lunges at his legs. The noise was unholy, bringing William charging into the room armed with a saucepan shouting at the top of his voice,